3/23/14

Cookie bars obviously one of my baking obsessions.
I've made countlessvarieties and don't plan on stopping anytime soon.
I haven't made a chocolate version--say what?
I know!
So I took the version that I use all the time, Jacques Torres version and tweaked it a bit to
make it a chocolate--a double chocolate version.
It came out perfect.
And the same rule of thumb applies to this as it does the original version: the longer the dough sits in the fridge to "marinate" the better the flavor. The process is almost like a souring process, but in a good way; think of if you were to add a hint of buttermilk to a chocolate chip cookie recipe--a nice gentle, sour/twangy flavor in the background. So good.
And I'm willing to bet if you find a higher cacao chocolate powder it would be even better.
I used a run of the mill chocolate powder: Ghiradelli, but would love to try it with something better/higher cacao.
Yes, this does look like a brownie, kind of tastes like it too, but very light and far more crisp than a brownie.
For me, this raw version is perfectly fine.

After baking, it truly needs a couple hours to firm up/set up.

If you dig into this straight out of the oven it will be very gooey and delicate—which isn’t a bad thing. But it’s also very good in a harder, cookie-like version.

1 ½ cups bittersweet chocolate chips (use one with a high
cacao like Ghiradelli)

couple handfuls of chopped pecans (or walnuts), optional

Cook Notes:

I do not recommend using milk chocolate chips in this
recipe—it would be overkill sweetness.

I divided the dough into 2/3 and 1/3 piles, as I wanted the
top of the cookie bars to have a nice crunch to them. The 2/3 is the bottom/pressed in layer, and
then the 1/3 is left like a crumble topping—loosely placed on top, as I did
with the sprinkling of the nuts.

It truly needs a couple hours to firm up/set up. If you dig into this straight out of the oven
it will be very gooey and delicate—which isn’t a bad thing.

But it’s also very good in a harder,
cookie-like version.

Lastly, you all know by now I don't have a mixer so I did
this recipe by hand.

The dough is very tough and hard to mix, so I used my
hands--great workout!

Take the 2/3 dough and line the bottom of the baking pan
with it, making sure to get all the corners, making sure there aren’t any holes
or gaps in the dough.

Take the 1/3 remaining dough and in clumps, place on the
top. Also make sure to take any dough and close up any gaps you see in the
corners.

Don’t push the crumble down into the dough, just leave it on
the top—it’s ok to have spaces in the crumble—gaps are good on the top, it will
let crumbles will bake up nice & crisp. If you want to add nuts then
sprinkle on a couple handfuls of chopped nuts.

Bake until golden brown but still soft, roughly 25 – 34
minutes.

Look for golden brown edges, non-jiggly middle.

The middle will be a bit soft, but once it completely cools
it won’t be as gooey; it sets up really nice.

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I'm going to have to try crumbling 1/3 of the dough on more of my cookie bars. I usually only do it for jam bars or others where there's a filling of some sort spread on top of the pressed layer, but I like the idea of getting the top a little crispier.

We have a brownie recipe that takes 5 hours (yes F I V E!!!) before it's firm enough to eat. So we just make two batches -- one to gobble immediately, and one to eat when they're properly set up. So we'd do that with these wonderful looking bars, too. ;-) This looks incredible -- thanks.

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Unique eats, creative recipes, as simple as possible.What drives me to create? Seeing dishes in restaurants, meals created on TV, recipes in cookbooks/online, and I always think to myself why didn’t they add this or why did they leave out that? Love to question, love to research, and love to learn about combining different flavors and textures in recipes.Recipe creations please email: vanillasugarblog@aol.com